RS

MEMBER DIARY

Weird and Partisan

I was driving into law school through the city of Albany, NY and I saw a public middle school sign flashing the words “All Hail President Barack Obama” and it brought a wierd feeling over me. It just didn’t sound right. It sounded and looked cultish and reminded me of the chants given to ruthless dictators like Hitler and Kim Jong Ill. Now I know we have a song called “Hail to the chief” and that All Hail is a expression of acclamation. But i have never seen it in all my life like that, on a sign in this country. Maybe I’m nit picking too much but I never would expect a public school to be telling their students to All Hail a politician no matter who he or she is.

On a different angle aren’t the schools always complaining about how they constantly need more money. Isn’t a giant electronic sign like this one a little pricey and overboard. Isn’t there a cheaper way to remind people who the President is and when PTA meetings are being held.

Finally, I called up the school and got the secretary I asked who I could talk to, to complain about the sign and she insisted that she could take my complaint but as soon as I started complaining she tried to tell me that I had nothing to complain about and started lecturing me on free speech (it is scary that our public education employees don’t know that the first amendment free speech right is meant to stop the government [the school, in this case] from censoring the people, not to allow the government to use our money to espouse their views). On a final point I asked if they ever said anything like this for President Bush and as you can imagine she said NO. So our taxpayer money (its all of ours since they most likley get federal funding) is used to praise a President depending on what party he is in.